From Evaluating Democracy Assistance to Appraising Democracy Promotion

Abstract

Organisations involved in delivering international democracy assistance are engaging increasingly with questions about how to assess their activities. A double shift in the terms of reference, from the ex post evaluation of assistance projects or programmes to ex ante appraisal of the broader democracy promotion strategies, could make democracy promotion more effective. This does not mean abandoning the former; on the contrary its status would be enhanced. Improving the chain of learning that leads from assistance evaluations to the formulation of promotion strategies could improve decision-making over how and whether to promote democracy abroad. Because strategies for democracy promotion are constitutive of the political relationship with countries, different strategies have different implications for the possibilities of political self-determination. For that reason and because democratisation and hence effective democracy promotion may be beneficial for human development, international peace and national security, strategies that reflect informed appraisal would be an improvement on a defective status quo. The challenges include: more systematic data gathering; innovative ways of comparing the various democracy promotion options; and institutional changes that connect the research findings to the high politics of policy-making.

Promoting Democracy and Promoting Autocracy: Towards A Comparative Evaluation

“…Its potential importance in regard to democracy support is also now widely understood, although a rigorous and systematic application and a determination to adopt the lessons it provides both seem to be lagging behind. The great bulk of the assessments of democracy assistance projects and programmes so far fall into the ex post category, although there are strong grounds for arguing that an ex ante approach to contextualising the assessment of democracy assistance within a more wide-ranging appraisal of democracy promotion tout court would offer important advantages to policy-makers (Burnell 2008). …”

Party aid: democracy promotion's ‘new frontier’ or its final frontier?

“…69 For example, if analysis suggests that the main obstacle to democratisation is the ruling party's marginalisation and oppression of pro-democracy opposition parties and movements, the logical plan would be to support those latter parties and movements-an undeniably political move. 70 From anonymous interviews I have conducted with former and current representatives of US democracy promotion organisations, these individuals are fully conscious of 'dancing on the line of internal affairs' and recognise the need to 'cross that line': 'NDI and IRI are willing to cross that line. [Their] staff are all political operatives.…”

‘Bringing the outside in’: illustrations from Haiti and Mali for the re-conceptualization of democracy promotion

“…Measures to support democracy-building form only a small piece of the large mosaic of traditional development cooperation between donors and local elites (Burnell 2008). Existing donors who aim at promoting democracy usually have country offices that were established more than three decades ago, and they continuously interact with local elites and institutions.…”